Dr Paul Alexandre, Paris (acquired directly from the artist)
Private Collection, Paris (by descent from the above)
A gift from the above to the present owner in 1996

Venice, Palazzo Grassi; London, The Royal Academy of Arts (and travelling to Cologne, Madrid, Florence, Montreal & Rouen), The Unknown Modigliani, Drawings from the Collection of Paul Alexandre, 1993-96, no. 185, fig. 263, illustrated in the catalogue

Osvaldo Patani, Modigliani, Catalogo generale, disegni 1906-1920 con i disegni provenienti dalla collezione Paul Alexandre (1906-1914), Milan, 1994, no. 841, illustrated p. 367

Executed on cream wove paper, not laid down, hinged to the mount at the upper two corners and floating in the mount. The upper edge is very slightly perforated, inherent to the support, and there are artist's pinholes to each of the upper two corners. There are some light creases to the sheet, mainly to the lower two corners and some minor handling marks towards the left and right edges. There is a tiny tear to the left side of the upper edge. Otherwise, this work is in overall good condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue, though the paper tone is slightly less pink in the original.
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An excepti🐎onal work which can be dated to 1911 is the strangely elongated lion.

Exceptional, because 'as far as we know, this is the only animal ever d♊rawn by Modigliani, and the draughtsmanship shows a masterly freedom. It is an exceptional, though not eccentric, work, which was valued by Modigliani, since – as the pinholes seem to suggest – he must have pinned it up in his studio.'

Also here, the artist's urge towards stylization drove him to purify forms, to delinea🏅te them 💟with a sensuous arabesque which is as far from the intellectual or the cerebral as his many drawings of female nudes.

1911, as Noël Alexandre points out, is the beginning of a period of great creativity. In♚ this drawing, each line traced by Modigliani's hand is deliberate and carefully considered. His style is fully developed, as he unites artifice and nature, the sensual and the hieratic, audacity and grace. One feels that the artist has fully visualized the complete drawing in his mind before its actual realization, which he carries out with complete authority.